Many people like candy corn, such as hobos, serial murderers, and Satan. But actually, candy corn is terrible. If you give it out to trick-or-treating children this evening, you belong in fucking prison.

Hey, do you know what would be a great autumnal confection? A candy that tastes like a candle. Especially if it is shaped like corn. That is a thought process someone had once. His name was George Renninger, and he worked for a company called Wunderle Candy Company in the 1880s, and if there is any justice in this broken world, a demon is using him as a Q-Tip right now. Corn-shaped candlefood is the worst idea anyone ever had, and the list of ideas also includes, like, the atomic bomb and Mission to Mars and "Now let us sign Gilbert Arenas to a contract extension," so, you know, that is one terrible-ass idea.

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But people invent dumb shit all the time. The more pressing question is: What in the damn hell is wrong with the rest of the human race, that a market for these deodorant-flavored earwax nuggets persists into the 21st century? Why purchase these wee little warhead-shaped misery pellets? Why consume them? Why give them to children?

All around you are reasons to doubt the long-term feasibility of this whole "humanity" thing. Avarice and cruelty and callousness and exploitation and destruction. Disease. Disorder. Jim Gray. And then there is the persistence of candy corn, which humans have been purchasing and consuming and giving to children for around 130 years, measured against which all those other bad, discouraging things are like a gentle breeze or a massage or a warm feeling of contentment and security. Both because candy corn is worse than all those other things, but also because, if we are going to continue purchasing and consuming and handing out candy corn, then maybe our annihilation will turn out to be a good thing.

Heed these words, oh humans: Feast not upon the candy corn! For you are grossing me out to the max. Don't eat it, tonight or tomorrow or next week when all the good candy is gone and there's just a bunch of it at the bottom of the candy bowl and you are jonesing for a sugar fix. Turn away! Squirt some Mrs. Butterworth into your mouth instead. That will be gross, too, but not as gross as candy corn. A sugar-coated rat is not as gross as candy corn.